


Keats: Or,the Postmodern Prometheus

by the_alchemist



Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, Ode to a Nightingale - John Keats, Romantic Poets RPF
Genre: Consumption, Crack, Faustian Bargain, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Laudanum, M/M, Mad Science, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5461010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dear recipient</p><p>Your three prompts: hurt/comfort, fix-it and crackfic based on this fail-fandomanon thread: http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/79466.html?thread=379647594 charmed me so much that I wrote you a chapter of each.</p><p>Was that a good decision? I honestly have no idea. But I can tell you I had a lot of fun writing the laudanum-soaked adventures of Tragic Keats, Evil Keats and their associates, so thank you for your prompt.</p><p>All the best</p><p>Your Mystery Author</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tragic Keats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MildredMost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/gifts).



> Tragic Keats tends to cough up blood and make bad puns. Evil Keats makes pacts with the devil, writes truly execrable poetry and has a sexual magnetism that some readers may feel verges on the dubcon. Both Keatses and all their friends appear to be taking a *lot* of laudanum. 
> 
> Thanks to beta readers B, who read it and made some helpful comments even though it really isn't their kind of thing, and A who restored my confidence by liking it.

Their rooms in Rome would have been pleasant enough under other circumstances, but Severn had barely left them for weeks. He knew every flower and every spot on the wallpaper, every knot in the floorboards. He longed for freedom, for roaming in the hills, or even walking the streets, smiling at the pretty Italian girls.

"I had the strangest dream."

Severn turned. It was the first time in two days that his friend had said anything comprehensible. He pulled his chair closer to the bed, at once forgetting his selfish meditations. "Tell me, John, what did you dream?"

"Help me sit up then."

Severn was as gentle as he could be, and it was no effort: Keats was as light as a child. But he winced all the same. "My skin is as tender as ... as ..."

"As a butterfly's wings?" suggested Severn.

"I'd been going to say as a coin," said Keats. "But I couldn't decide whether it was funny or not."

Severn smiled sadly, imagining the poet meeting the grim reaper himself with a pun. "So," he said, "your dream."

Keats frowned. "My brother Tom was there. Oh Joseph, what anguish it has been to me to think how I neglected him in his last illness."

"You did everything you could," said Severn.

"I didn't do as much for him as you for me," said Keats. "Ah, if only I had known then how terrible consumption is, the agonies and indignities of it all."

"But your dream ..." said Severn. He hoped it would be something amusing and distracting.

"Yes," said Keats. "Tom was there and ... oh!" His pale face flushed pink, and Severn feared some new crisis in the sickness.

"What is it, John?"

"Joseph," said Keats. "Is it possible to commit sin in a dream?"

"No," said Joseph. "For sin to be present, intent must be present and in a dream there is none. But perhaps your dream is not the best topic of conversation. It seems to have been a distressing one."

"Oh no!" said Keats. "It was very pleasant. Lord Byron was in it and we ... well, if you must know, we _kissed_."

Severn smiled. "Oh yes? Tell me more."

But Keats was taken with a violent fit of coughing, and lurched forward with an energy of which Severn had not thought him capable.

Severn rushed to fetch handkerchiefs, and a bowl. His heart sank to see how much blood there was, and when Keats could speak again, his eyes were fever-bright and fervent. "Oh my friend, my friend," he said. "Give me laudanum. Enough to kill me, if you have mercy, but if not then at least enough to give me a few hours respite."

Severn hesitated. Doctor Clark, alarmed at his patient's ardent desire for the repose of death, had strictly decreed that no laudanum should be permitted in their apartments. And yet Severn hadn't entirely obeyed. In his pocket was a small brown bottle of the tincture.

"Joseph," Keats continued. "I know you have it. I beg you, if you only do one thing for me again, do this."

Severn's eyes filled with tears. He had lightly used the word 'heartbreak', as young men do, but there in that little Roman apartment, he felt it physically: his heart was turned to porcelain and shivered to little pieces.

It was too much. It was all too much. He couldn't bear his friend's anguish, or at least not without sleep, without proper food, without the very things that Keats' predicament denied him.

"And you too." Keats' voice was low and gentle. "I see how you suffer. Come, bring out the bottle, and there will be enough for both of us."

Severn stared. The temptation was overwhelming. _Well then, let me be overwhelmed._ Trembling, he drew out the stopper, and measured them both a portion.


	2. Evil Keats

Keats stood in his attic laboratory, surrounded by glass tubes and bubbling alembics, his eyes glittering with strange enthusiasm. The fluid was a pale, sickly green: resembling a deadly poison more than the precious elixir he hoped it would become.

As yet the final ingredient was missing, but storm clouds were gathering over Hampstead Heath, and the apparatus on the roof was ready. “Soon,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Soon it will be time. I was too late to save my mother, but my poor brother at least will live …”

The door burst open: in ran Percy Shelley, his shirt unbuttoned and his high forehead drenched in sweat. Behind him was his fiancée Mary, her hair hanging wildly around her shoulders.

“Don’t do it!” cried Shelley.

“Ah!” said Keats. “But I must! You have not seen how Tom suffers, and the cure is almost within my grasp!”

“Consumption is a terrible thing,” said Mary, her voice trembling. “But death and suffering are man’s lot, and it is our part to bear it with fortitude. There can be holiness in that, John. Aye, and even joy."

“What you propose is unnatural and wicked,” said Shelley. “It profits a man nothing to gain all the kingdoms of the world and lose his soul. Think of what you are doing! Think with whom you have traded for this dreadful stuff!”

Just then, the first bolt of lightning illuminated the room. Keats threw back his head, laughing, and the elixir began to spark and fizz.

“No!” shouted Shelley, but then the second bolt came, brighter than the first, and with it a crack of thunder that shook the house to its foundations. The elixir glowed as bright as the sun for a few seconds and then dulled. All at once there was a terrible silence. It was as though every sound had been sucked from the world.

“ _Consummatum est_ ,” breathed Keats.

Shelley took a step back, shaking his head. “Oh my friend,” he said. “You are lost, lost …”

Mary was shaking from head to foot and had gone a deathly pale. “Oh my love,” said Shelley. “Come, come, we must be gone from this ungodly place.” But she shook her head, staring.

“What is it?” said Shelley, now as pale as her. “Mary my love, what is it?”

Her knees gave way, but before she fainted entirely, two words fell out from between her bluish-tinged lips: “plot … bunny …”

And then, never one to be outdone, Shelley fainted too.

 

Keats delicately stepped over their supine figures, holding the flask of elixir, and crept down the stairs to Tom’s bedroom.

Tom was sitting up in bed, having eaten a few morsels of supper. Keats smiled to think of his appetite returning, of his wan face regaining its shape and colour, of his battered lungs fleshing out and once again breathing the sweet air without torment.

“John!” he said. “I am glad to see you, my brother. The pact has progressed!”

The pact!? How could he have known? John’s brows darkened. But it was a more innocent pact of which his brother spoke.

“Remember? When we decided we should each write a poem upon the nightingale. Mine is complete!”

“As is mine,” said John. He had worked very hard on it, spending several sleepless nights with a rhyming dictionary and an ornithological encyclopaedia.

“You first then,” said Tom.

John cleared his throat:

> “The nightingale,
> 
> Is not that pale
> 
> It’s rather brown
> 
> Or so I’ve found.
> 
> Its Latin name is _Luscinia megarhynchos_
> 
> And it isn’t found in the land of the Incas.
> 
> Instead it’s native to the forest and scrubland of Europe and South West Asia
> 
> But migrates in winter to Western Africa, which it wouldn’t do if it were lazier.”

Tom applauded. “Oh, that’s lovely John,” he said. “The rhymes are very clever, and there’s a beautiful simplicity to the phrase ‘not that pale’, and ‘scrubland’ is such an evocative word – its barrenness contrasts so dramatically with the loveliness of the nightingale’s song.”

John blushed modestly. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I dashed it off in a few minutes – I’ve been busy with another project. But I can tell you about that once I’ve heard yours.”

“Well,” said Tom. “I obviously haven’t been writing poetry for as long as you, so please be kind, but I did have a go.” He took out a notebook from beneath his pillow and cleared his throat. “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains… oh dear,” and he gave way to a hacking cough, and handed the notebook to John who began to read, with a frown that deepened at every stanza.

When Tom had recovered enough to speak again he put down his blood-stained handkerchief. “Well brother? What do you think?”

John sighed. “It’s … a very good effort Tom.” He was flicking through the notebook. There were dozens of poems there, and at first glance, _all_ of them seemed to irritatingly brilliant

“Oh dear,” said Tom. “I knew it wasn’t good enough to show you.”

“Well, don’t worry,” said John. “How about I take your notebook and see if I can help you with some of them?”

“Would you,” said Tom, smiling again. “I’d be so grateful. But what of this other project you were talking about? Is it that flask you brought in?”

“No!” said John, snatching it up from the nightstand. “No, no, this is just … absinthe.”

“Oh, John, are you drinking again? I thought you’d stopped after that time you set fire to those orphans.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” said John, and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

He needed fresh air. He went out into the street, and who should he see but pretty, pious Lord Byron?

“Keats, my friend!” said Byron. “Shelley sent for me. I was just at church. He said he needed help. He said you were … goodness, whatever’s wrong?” Byron stared at his friend’s face, which shone with diabolical intensity.

“What do you mean, what’s wrong?” said Keats. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything is as right as it possibly could be. Come and kiss me, Byron, and I’ll show you how right it is: I’ll show you ecstasy itself!”

Byron gasped. It was improper! It was worse than improper: it was the greatest sin he could imagine. But oh! the beauty of the man! Oh! the brightness of his eyes and oh! the roses of his lip and cheek. As though drawn by magnetism, the innocent young lord stepped forward, and melted into his friend’s embrace.

(By the next morning, kissing was not even _nearly_ the greatest sin that Byron could imagine.)


	3. Keats Triumphant

"John, you cad!"

Severn blinked. He found himself in bed with Keats, their bodies coiled together. What had happened? Why was ... ah yes. The laudanum.

But then there was a third person, and he was trying to shake Keats awake. "What are you doing?" said Severn. "He's sick, man. Leave him al ... Shelley?"

But Shelley was supposed to be far away in Pisa! And besides, Shelley loved Keats almost as much as Severn himself did. And why would he harass a dying man?

"John!" Shelley was saying. "Wake up, and come back with me to London directly. Would you ruin an innocent man's reputation? You must marry him at once!"

Keats was awake now, and sitting up, alarmed. "Shelley?" he said. "What are you doing here? Who must marry whom and why?"

"You, sir, must marry Lord Byron. To serve him as you did and then abandon him. Oh, it's scandalous. Scandalous!"

"Have you gone mad, sir?" Severn stood up and pulled Shelley away from Keats.

"No indeed," said Shelley, pulling himself free. "Rather your friend Mr Keats was mad when he sold his soul to goodness knows what diabolical power to produce his elixir, then abandoned his own brother to die anyway and then – _then_ – seduced the sweetest, most innocent flower of English nobility right there in the street, by Hampstead Heath."

"I haven't left him these two months!" said Severn. "And Tom died two years ago! None of this makes any sense!"

"But it does," breathed Keats in wonder. "My dream, my dream! All of this happened in my dream."

 

A couple of hours later, several cups of tea had been drunk, tempers had been calmed, disbelief had been suspended, Keats was sleeping, and Severn and Shelley were sitting at the little table in the adjoining parlour drafting their plan of action.

"... the point being," Severn was saying, "that if this other Keats has the cure for consumption, then I would go beyond the ends of the earth to find it."

"As would I," said Shelley.

"But what ship would take us to him? What carriage, what road? You say he's in London, but he isn't in the London we left, so why would he be in the London we return to?"

"'Tis true," said Shelley, sighing. And both were silent for some minutes, pummelling their brilliant minds for some spark of an idea.

"We could always," said Shelley, "take the viewless wings of poesy, I suppose."

Severn stared at him. "The what?"

"The viewless wings of poesy. It's not the most comfortable of journeys, of course, but it would certainly get us there."

"Are you being metaphorical?" asked Severn.

Shelley looked puzzled. "Of course not. Do you even know what a metaphor is? If I said 'let's take the viewless wings of poesy, which are a swift shooting star', that would be a metaphor–"

"But not a very good one," said Severn.

"Right," said Shelley. "I never said a very good one, just–"

"I'm coming too," called Keats.

 

When they got there, it was exactly like the Keats brothers - one in each cosmos - had described it: Queen-Moon on her throne and verdurous glooms and everything.

Keats had suffered much on the journey, and Severn had to carry him down from the viewless wings of poesy. Gently, he laid him in a mossy bower, but just then Shelley took his arm and made him turn. There, sitting on an tree stump as though it were his throne, sat the other Keats, and in his hand was a flask of pale green liquid.

"Well, well, well," he said. "If it isn't my old friend Percy Shelley. Come to plead for Georgie-boy, have you? For virtue dishonoured, for innocence deflowered? He came to me of his own free will, and there ain't one single thing you can do about it. I will marry him when hell freezes over."

"No." Severn stepped forward before Shelley could say anything. "We've come for what's in your hand."

Evil Keats stared at it as though he had forgotten it were there. He loosened his grip and dropped it. Severn threw himself forward, but Evil Keats had reflexes like lightning, and had caught it again. "Oops," he said. "Clumsy old me."

"What do you want for it?" asked Severn.

"Well let me see now," said Keats, inspecting his fingernails. "I want ... precisely nothing. I have absolutely everything I could possibly want or need. But here, I tell you what ..." he was no longer meeting Severn's eye, but looking past him. "I tell you what, I'll fight you for it. And you can choose your weapons."

Severn swallowed. He had never fought a duel before. Such things belonged to a different world from his. Yet if it were his only chance ... "I accept," he said. "I choose–"

But Evil Keats was shaking his head. "Not you, old boy. _Him_." And he pointed to Tragic Keats, lying pale and weak in the mossy bower.

"No," said Severn. "No, that's not fair. He's not even strong enough to hold a pistol, let alone –"

"Thank you, Joseph." Tragic Keats' voice was stronger than Severn had heard it for a while. Evil Keats raised an eyebrow. "Thank you, but _I_ accept the challenge. And I choose ... poetry."

Evil Keats' despairing cry echoed through the embalmed darkness, even as Severn held the flask to Tragic Keats' lips and watched him drink.

 

* * *

 

_John Keats (1795-1896) was a scientist, poet, playwright and novelist. He is famous for having discovered the cure for consumption, and is equally well regarded as a writer. His literary works include over 2000 individual poems, as well as 30 novels and 23 plays._

_He was born in Moorgate, London to a family of modest means, and began training as an apothecary in 1815. His own diagnosis with consumption appears to have been what spurred his research. He travelled to Rome for what he described as a 'rest cure' in 1820, and was subsequently reluctant to give any information about what happened there. We can assume, however that period of his life was devoted to the intense study that resulted in the 'elixir' which is still the first line of treatment for tuberculosis today._

_Although on his return he was offered fellowships at all the major medical schools in England and Scotland, he declined them, announcing his plan to devote the rest of his life to literature._

_From that time onwards, there were rumours that he was involved in some kind of scandal involving Lord Byron. They were frequently reported as having been seen together "disporting themselves in a most unfitting manner" as one contemporary commented. However, Keats always had an alibi for these occasions. For example, one evening in May 1840, when a hundred or so witnesses reported having seen them together_ in flagrante delicto _in Hyde Park, he had in fact been taking tea with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. When asked about the rumours, Keats customarily smiled and claimed that he must have an evil twin._


End file.
